This invention relates to a musical accompaniment playing apparatus called "KARAOKE", and more particularly to a musical accompaniment playing apparatus capable of reproducing a chorus voice (hereinafter referred to as a back chorus) in harmony with a singing voice of a user.
As a conventional musical accompaniment playing apparatus, one capable of reproducing a back chorus in addition to a musical accompaniment, for user's enjoyment, is known. One type of such an apparatus is adapted, as shown in FIG. 1A, to reproduce a single sound or monosyllable such as "a-" or "u-" by using a specific sound generator to produce a back chorus. Further, an apparatus of other type is adapted, as shown in FIG. 1B, to store some groups of chorus voices such as "hei hei ho-" (chorus voices in a Japanese popular song "YOSAKU") coded to a PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) code, etc. into a memory and output a desired one from the memory.
However, the apparatus of the former type can output only a single sound like "a-" or "u-", but cannot output a back chorus of successive words having significant meanings. On the other hand, the apparatus of the latter type requires a large capacity memory for storing groups of chorus voices. Such a memory is expensive. Further, in the case of the latter type apparatus, since a time length of a chorus voice stored is not variable, the chorus voice is reproduced out of harmony with a user's singing voice when the user changes a tempo of a music.